Rod cutters, for use in spinal implant, are already commonly known. These cutters can be arranged to have a supporting base which rests upon a table top or the like, and a relatively long handle is pivoted to the base for actuating cutters which sever a rod to be used in the spinal implant. In that endeavor, the goal is to provide a rod cutter with sufficient mechanical advantage or cutting leverage so that the user can sufficiently manipulate the pivotal handle for severing the rod with a minimum of effort, and also for cutting rods of varying cross-sectional sizes.
The present invention accomplishes the aforementioned, and it does so by means of a table-mounted rod cutter which presents a mechanical force-advantage arrangement so that reliable but only minimal hand force is required by the user in accomplishing the cutting of the rod.
Still further, the rod cutter of this invention is arranged so that a single cutter can be utilized for receiving and cutting rods of several different cross-sectional sizes. That is, noseparate and special rod cutter is required for each size of rod to be cut.
Another object and advantage of this rod cutter is to have the arrangement of two cutters which present the cutting edges, and with the cutters being identical to each other and thus interchangeable in their positions in the cutter itself. The cutters of this invention can be readily removed from their original installed position and can be interchanged and/or inverted so that they present different cutting edges, and thus the original cutter with its different cutting edges can be repositioned to fully utilize all of its cutting capacity, that is, in various cutting edges.
Again, the cutter of this invention is arranged to be sturdy in its construction and reliable in operation to assure that the rod is cut, as intended and as desired, and the mechanical advantage provided by this cutter is such that the actual length of the manually-operated handle can be of a shorter length than otherwise required in a cutter where the mechanical advantage is less than that of the cutter of this invention. In actuality, the mechanical advantage of this cutter is compounded in that it exists in two steps in a series where the handle exerts a first mechanical advantage and then the cutter itself exerts another mechanical advantage.
While the drawings show the cutter with table-mounting means, it will be readily seen and understood that the cutter could also be one with two handles pivoted together, off table.